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Facebook Chooses Singapore For $1 Billion Data Center (bbc.co.uk)

Posted by BeauHD on from the home-sweet-home dept.

Facebook is planning to open a new data center in Singapore in 2022. The more than $1 billion facility will be located in the west of the country, according to the BBC. From the report: It has been designed as an 11-floor structure, in an attempt to conserve space in the crowded nation, according to Facebook. One analyst told the BBC it was another sign of the country's popularity with large technology companies. The new, 170,000-sq-m (1.8-million-sq-ft) data centre will support "hundreds" of local jobs. Facebook said it expected the building to be powered by 100% renewable energy and noted that it would feature a liquid cooling system that minimized water and power use.

38 of 72 comments (clear)

  1. Trump needs to tariff all data... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    ...coming from Singapore. 15% tariff on all FB likes, 29% tariff on all food selfies.

  2. WWW still expanding... by The+New+Guy+2.0 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They're still building new datacenters nearly everywhere there's bandwidth. Will this be 100% used by FB, or will this be the start of an FB cloud hosting to rival AWS?

    1. Re:WWW still expanding... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Facebook is consolidating it's servers out of it's existing Singapore datacenter leases. It's not building tonnes more capacity than it already has.

      Singapore is attractive because it has low latency, redundant/competitive, submarine cable connections to every nation in the region.

    2. Re:WWW still expanding... by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 1

      That would be for Asia. Lag would be too high for the US and Europe.

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    3. Re:WWW still expanding... by The+New+Guy+2.0 · · Score: 1

      Yep... but currently FB lags in Asia contacting the USA.

  3. A CANING GOOD IDEA! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Whip that boy in street, with some cane! Sweet, sweet smacks of blood!

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    1. Re:A CANING GOOD IDEA! by rogoshen1 · · Score: 2

      yeah but i bet that little bastard never did it again.

    2. Re:A CANING GOOD IDEA! by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 3, Informative

      yeah but i bet that little bastard never did it again.

      He left Singapore right after his caning, so he never faced the possibility of another caning.

      Michael P. Fay

      He was later arrested on drug and alcohol offenses in Florida.

  4. Gee, NOT in the USA? by p51d007 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Home of Facebook, Zucker said screw that, I can do it MUCH cheaper in Singapore and get a FATTER return on my money.

    1. Re:Gee, NOT in the USA? by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 2

      Home of Facebook, Zucker said screw that, I can do it MUCH cheaper in Singapore and get a FATTER return on my money.

      . . . until Trump announces a tax on data stored outside the USA on Tuesday . . .

      It's not, "There's an app for that!" any more . . . it's "There's a tariff or tax for that!"

      --
      Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
    2. Re:Gee, NOT in the USA? by catsRus · · Score: 1

      They are building one in Los Lunas, New Mexico, USA, right now. It's not as big but it is a good sized data center.

  5. Odd location by Archfeld · · Score: 1

    I'd think they would look for a inland location that wasn't on the ring of fire earthquake zone, have nearby volcanoes, AND subject to frequent hurricanes (typhoons?). I've never been there but is the power infrastructure of great stability ?

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    errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
    1. Re:Odd location by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Singapore definitely isn't subject to frequent typhoons. Its proximity to the equator actually makes typhoons extremely unlikely. The earthquake risk is relatively low because Singapore isn't located on a plate boundary. Studies have shown the tsunami risk is also relatively low. Volcanic ash from nearby volcano eruptions could cause air travel issues for Singapore, but the direct risk is very low.

    2. Re:Odd location by Archfeld · · Score: 1

      Based on what information ? Not that I am trying to call you out but I'm genuinely interested. I'm in the western US and we've had maybe 4 hours of outage in the last 5 years and that was because of a flash flood that hit the local substation. We have redundant delivery systems to until you get to that last mile location and then we are isolated but mainly because we live out in the boondocks 30 miles or so from anything resembling a city.

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      errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
    3. Re:Odd location by alvinrod · · Score: 3, Informative

      It's not a bad location really. While Singapore is technically in the ring of fire, it's not close to any volcanoes itself. It also doesn't get a lot of typhoons compared to other parts of the region. Outside of those worries it has a lot of upsides. Geographically it's really close to around 50% of the world's population, the infrastructure is good, and it's unlikely that Facebook will run into any political issues as Singapore is pretty business friendly.

    4. Re:Odd location by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

      Typhoons form in the tropics and gain strength as they move away from the equator. Since Singapore is nearly right on the equator, typhoons are a non-issue.

      A hurricane and a typhoon are two words for the same thing, depending on location. They are called hurricanes in the Atlantic and eastern Pacific. They are called typhoons in the western Pacific and Indian Ocean.

      Tsunamis only go a few hundred meters inland.

      Singapore is a 1st World country, with a per capita GDP of $58k, nearly identical to America. Their electricity infrastructure is rock solid.

      I have been there several times. Beautiful city ... err ... country, very friendly people that all speak English, and lots of rules.

    5. Re:Odd location by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      Distance. Less ping to Asia.
      Low cost power.
      Lots of submarine cable networks.
      Skilled staff.
      Political stability.
      Legal system.

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      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    6. Re:Odd location by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      Singapore is not the USA. Singapore invested in early networks and digital systems well before many other cities.
      A number of submarine cable networks pass via Singapore. That digital network history shows the power stays on and the networks stay working.
      The ping is also low to the res of Asia. Location and every ms of ping counts.

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      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    7. Re:Odd location by RhettLivingston · · Score: 1

      If they are building a data center in Singapore, it is because they have a need for the computing power in that region.

      Data obeys the speed of light. It would take at least 45 milliseconds for data to travel from Singapore to San Francisco assuming the fiber is routed absolutely straight. That's too long to allow reasonable response times given everything else involved in creating responses. Data centers must be regionally based to provide decent response times.

    8. Re: Odd location by kenh · · Score: 1

      Power outages?

      You understand that a nearly two million square foot data center will likely have a huge bank of batteries and a phalanx of generators to keep the data center humming along 24x7 until it is shutdown, right?

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      Ken
    9. Re: Odd location by Archfeld · · Score: 1

      I worked in a high availability DC with UPS and numerous generators to maximize uptime. The problem or weak spot in relying on generators is fuel. We kept the max we were allowed which amounted to about 7 days. Easily remedied if the underlying structure is uncompromised. From the replies I've received here I understand that Singapore's is pretty solid.

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      errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
  6. Will fakebook be around? by Bodhammer · · Score: 2

    Will fakebook be around in 2022? Seriously.
    https://bgr.com/2018/09/05/del...

    --
    "I say we take off, nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
  7. A one billion dollar data center by rsilvergun · · Score: 1, Interesting

    and it's going to support "hundreds" of jobs? And I wouldn't be surprised to find out some of those jobs are in building the thing....

    So anyway we're heading for a post-work world folks. Or at the very least another industrial revolution. And the last few times that happened there were decades of unemployment & social strife until either tech caught up or, more likely, we had a big enough war that everything blew up and had to be rebuilt.

    Anyway, We gonna do anything about it?

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
    1. Re: A one billion dollar data center by kenh · · Score: 1

      I can't even begin to imagine the number of workers required to 'rack and stack' the countless hundreds of thousands of servers in the facility...

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      Ken
  8. Re:And death for using guns in a crime even partne by hey! · · Score: 2

    Caning is certainly more humane than prison. It just strikes us as barbaric because we're used to the barbarities of prison.

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    Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  9. Re:Outlier: Islam by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

    Zuck and his family will have to convert to Islam

    Singapore is about 15% muslim.

  10. Singapore by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 1

    Good choice, laa...

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    1. Re:Singapore by cciRRus · · Score: 1

      You meant "Good choice lah!" :-)

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      w00t
    2. Re:Singapore by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 1

      Either "lah or laa", laa.

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      Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
  11. On saving space? by chrism238 · · Score: 1
    > "It has been designed as an 11-floor structure, in an attempt to conserve space in the crowded nation, according to Facebook"

    Wow. Someone from Facebook should actually visit Singapore, and observe that it's big enough for, maybe, a 12 or even 13 floor structure. What a nonsense statement.

    1. Re:On saving space? by ole_timer · · Score: 1

      yeah, it was poorly worded - i think what they meant to say was it was not a sprawling one story farm...

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      nothing to see here - move along
  12. Low-cost power? by cciRRus · · Score: 1

    I'm not sure about that. We don't have renewable energy sources (no dams, wind turbines, or solar plants), we don't have fossil fuels (no crude oil, gas, or coal), and no nuclear power stations too.

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    w00t
    1. Re:Low-cost power? by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      Years of new submarine cable networks would not land in any nation that did not support the networking needed.
      LNG and many other new power projects has Singapore offering a lot of capacity for power.
      Electrical power and its cost, capacity is not an issue for Singapore.
      Thats all part of what makes Singapore so great for investment. Lots of electrical power at a good price.

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      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  13. Or maybe... by kenh · · Score: 1

    It has been designed as an 11-floor structure, in an attempt to conserve space in the crowded nation, according to Facebook.

    Or maybe a 1.8 million square foot data center on one floor is an insane idea?

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    Ken
  14. Re: No tariffs by kenh · · Score: 1

    Yet.

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    Ken
  15. Re: And the real reason is... by kenh · · Score: 1

    Riiiiiight. FB is building it's 11 story (space-saving!) 1.8 million squarefoot data center overseas because they can't imagine Democrats ever taking control of the government.

    What is it like in your world, where every decision is based on the actions (or feared actions) of Donald J. Trump? Trump's got about 6 more years in office, the house will likely flip in a few months, and the senate will likely remain under republican control long enough to confirm RBG's replacement - likely a 32 year-old lawyer with no meaningful history to examine (in the Kagen, Sotomayor tradition).

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    Ken
  16. Re:sea water by ole_timer · · Score: 1

    not really - they're already preparing

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    nothing to see here - move along
  17. Re:Great! by ole_timer · · Score: 1

    if i'm not mistaken there's more fb users outside the us then there ere are us citizens...

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    nothing to see here - move along